Bright lights in the early hours of morning, a shock to tired, sleepy eyes. The little space in the back of the room, ready for your attention. It’s 600am and there’s much to prepare before the actual work begins.
The unwieldy operating table, heavy and immovable and you have to maneuver around it to get to your machine and workstation.
The anesthesia machine in its usual place by the oxygen at the wall, the connections looping from the ceiling, heavy hoses you have to prop up against your computer so they don’t knock you in the face.
The pungent, now-familiar stench of Sevoflurane, when I struggle to refill the canister.
You will yourself awake. Rifling through memories of passwords to pyxis machines, computers. The colorful drug label stickers. 5 syringes--benzo, narc, numbing agent, sedative, and paralysis, in that order-- drawn up. A breathing tube, syringe, and stylet as one unit. A disposable handle preferred for its lighter weight compared to its heavier counterpart, and a blade of your choice, attached and at the ready. An oral airway, just in case, to ward off evil spirits. And a bougie you never really use, but always make sure you have, in the side pocket of your station. This, if the breathing circuit and machine are checked, complete “The Set-Up.”
You have to see yourself in the operating room, the administrator had told me, a way to rattle me into some sort of motivation to be better, more secure practitioner. I think about that now, and wonder if this is what she meant.